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The underlying assumption of this chapter is that the pedagogical leadership of school principals is a cornerstone for preservice and practicing teachers’ professional education in schools. The theory–practice divide in teachers’ performance (Koutselini & Persianis, 2000) can be overcome by changing the school ethos and culture from loose associations of students and teachers to communities of learning, a shift which cannot be achieved unless school principals value this effort and support teachers’ leadership in the learning communities of schools. The in-service training program RELEASE, which was funded by the European Committee (Project ID: EACEA-521386: Toward achieving Self-REgulated LEArning as a core in teachers’ In-SErvice training in Cyprus) is presented as an effective project for developing teachers’ leadership, as well as a rewarding experience for student teachers during their School Experience Program or Practicum. The program lasted one school year and aimed to enhance both the school principals’ pedagogic role in supporting participating teachers’ (preservice and in-service teachers’) professional development and leadership for changing teaching routines and enhancing students’ performance. This project productively shaped the life and work of schools, forming a foundation for powerful preservice pedagogies that will follow.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how leaders within a school district system understand their own and others' leadership positions from the perspectives of systems thinking and systems thinking skills.

The findings are based on interviews with superintendents, area managers (deputy superintendents), principals and first teachers in Sweden. Sets of systems thinking skills guide the analysis, specifically how various leadership positions are related (their structure and relationships), how leaders understand themselves in relation to the whole and the parts (mindset), what they think about how the organization is organized (content) and how they relate to the organization's history and future (behavior).

Leaders at all levels in the school organization have regular communications, but a wider systems thinking perspective is underdeveloped. The systems are hierarchical, with each level taking responsibility for its subsystem to such a high extent that it does not use or learn from other levels. We also found that change in the investigated schools is subtle, and in the schools, it did not seem important to understand change over time or the nature of important leverage points; the organizations' histories and futures were emphasized less than current issues and relations.

Increased knowledge on systems thinking skills can provide insights as to whether mindsets, content, structure and behavior are supporting each other or not. These perspectives can help actors on all levels to learn together.

In addition to the study outcomes, this paper offers a unique approach for studying the leadership positions of the governance chain and their impact on an organization's work and results. It obtains a broader picture of school districts' systems when various members of the governing chain express how they understand their organizations, in relation to systems thinking.

School leadership is found important for school development and student learning. Consequently, the interest in professional leadership education for principals has increased. In Sweden, professional leadership education for novice principals was made mandatory in 2010. Moreover, enhanced focus on leadership for teaching and learning in terms of ‘pedagogical leadership’ is highly topical. This study aims to deepen our knowledge of novice principals’ experiences of pedagogical leadership practices and relate these to their paths toward principalship. The study follows a qualitative and situated design and adopts a practice-based approach. Observations were conducted in the educational and workplace practices of novice principals in Sweden and interviews were conducted with principals and teachers. Using a conceptual framework of Wenger (1998), the analyses show that principals experience challenges concerning pedagogical leadership if their competence and experience are not aligned with practice and context. This mismatch seems to impair their pedagogical leadership practice. In addition, a lack of leadership experience obstructs their learning in the professional leadership education for principals.

The main task of every school is to contribute to student learning and achievement. In the twenty-first century, national and international evaluations and comparisons have focussed on measurable student and school results. Not only teachers but also principals are held accountable for school results, which increase expectations of principals to work to enhance student learning and improve outcomes. In Sweden, a principal's work with a given school's core mission is labeled as pedagogical leadership, a concept that includes diverse activities related to national goals and school results. Aspects of pedagogical leadership include principals’ classroom observations and communication about teaching and learning issues. The purpose of this paper is to describe a model of pedagogical leadership as a base for principals’ experience with the aim to develop their understanding of pedagogical leadership.

The paper builds on data from three groups of principals who participated in a course to learn more about pedagogical leadership.

The participating principals performed their pedagogical leadership in different manners and with varying quality. During the course, there was a shift in what activities and duties the principals prioritized. The findings highlight the importance of democratic leadership and the improvement of teacher capacity and student outcomes.

The paper gives practical examples on how principals can improve their understanding of pedagogical leadership.

There are few articles on how pedagogical leadership is understood and practiced. The paper provides a model for pedagogical leadership and empirical data that shows that the concept deserves to be viewed as a qualitative concept that need interpretation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the professional norms surrounding school development, with a special emphasis on school principals’ pedagogical leadership.

A norm perspective is used to identify possible links between legal norms, professional norms, and actions. The findings are based on answers given by 974 school principals in a web-based questionnaire. The design of the study and the findings are structured around three questions used to identify professional norms: what tasks principals prioritize as pedagogical leaders, where the external expectations on principals are derived from, and with whom school principals communicate regarding issues related to their pedagogical leadership.

The most evident professional norms identified in this study are that principals should: be present and close to the teaching and learning processes; involve teachers in quality development; enhance the development of formative assessments; engage in teacher development; develop the internal organization of the school to promote learning.

The norm perspective and the findings of this study could be used by principals, principal trainers, and researchers to reflect on pedagogical leadership in different contexts. A challenge for principals is to become aware of the professional norms that guide them, and to close the gap between their “desirable” norms and their actions. Action alternatives and professional norms become visible through discussions emanating from questions about what leaders do, how they do so and why they do what they do, which is a way to strengthen both the profession and the individual principals.

Instructional leadership is a school leadership approach that places great emphasis on enhancing the quality of teaching and learning. This study explored the enabling factors of instructional leadership in subject coordinators.

The participants in this qualitative study were 24 subject coordinators in elementary schools in Israel. Data collection was based on semi-structured interviews, and data analysis included three stages: sorting, coding and categorizing.

The findings identified three significant enabling factors of instructional leadership in subject coordinators: pedagogical knowledge, relationship capability and support from the principal.

This study suggests that the enabling factors of instructional leadership in subject coordinators differ from those of instructional leadership in principals because of their different places in the school structure and explains the enablers of instructional leadership in subject coordinators as middle leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a piece of research concerning the time management of Cypriot primary school principals. Time management refers to the interrelation of five independent variables: the various tasks principals perform, their frequency, the degree of accomplishment of those tasks, the use of time management techniques and time management style (from monochronic to polychronic).

Quantitative methods were used (questionnaire) together with qualitative methods (observation, interviews, collection of artifacts), in order to obtain richer, deeper data and view multiple angles of the same phenomenon.

The results of cluster analysis indicated three different time management profiles/types of principals: The Centralized Monochrons, the Procrastinative Managers and the Decentralized Polychrons. One basic conclusion is that the principals who adopt the practices of the Decentralized Polychrons manage better their time.

The three time management profiles of principals are described, analysed, and discussed in order to reach conclusions about the selection, training, and placement of school principals. Through the description of the everyday practice of Cypriot principals useful information concerning school leadership and management are also provided. Finally, the conclusions of this research may prove useful for principals, because they are provided with the opportunity to rethink and evaluate their own time management and effectiveness of their daily practices.

The creation and description of the three time management profiles is the main contribution of this piece of research, since there are not any time management types-profiles registered in the bibliography, which were produced with the use of scientific instruments and procedures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge of strategy within the field of educational administration. It is intended to be the basis for future empirical research and inquiry into strategy in education by suggesting alternate ways of defining and researching strategy.

The study examines the contemporary context of educational administration, the evolution of strategy as an educational construct, its definition and need within educational administration. Using this information the author identifies key conceptual and methodological issues in current research.

The paper finds that knowledge of strategy in education is incomplete and muddled because research and writing in the field have approached strategy from a narrow and conceptually flawed position.

The advancement of knowledge in the area will only advance with alternate conceptualisations and methodological approaches.

Rather than merely review literature, this paper proposes a redefinition of strategy as an educational administration construct, focusing on key features not words and actions. The hope is that fellow scholars and practitioners will continue to question and focus on the key features of strategy and the issues that confront them.

The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge of principals' professional development (PD) by focusing on the arrangements that shape a PD practice initiated to enhance principals' instructional leadership.

The paper draws on findings from a three-year PD initiative in a Swedish school district. The data consist of field notes and semi-structured interviews with principals and managers. Theoretically, the paper takes its starting point in the theory of practice architectures and the cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements that shape practices.

Practices for principals' PD require a fine balance to prevent the perception of hierarchical control. Designated time, common artifacts and external expertise are arrangements of practice that enable principals' PD. High expectations and relations between principals and managers both enable and constrain principals' PD. As trustful relations are of particular importance, the implication for managers and others organizing for principals' PD is to make sure that collaborative work settings also become a natural way of working for principals. As building relations takes time, a longer time perspective is also recommended.

The findings have practical implications for educational leaders responsible for organizing PD practices for principals in any context.

This paper adopts a practice theory approach to its study of principals' PD and provide an elaborated illustration of arrangements that enable and constrain principals' PD in collegial settings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between school leadership practices and teacher empowerment in the Finnish policy culture. Specifically, moral leadership and distributed leadership enacted by school principals are tested in a simultaneous design as predictor to two distinct yet related aspects of teachers’ sense of empowerment, respectively, in their work domain and their classroom domain.

The study investigated a field sample of 246 individual teachers from ten Finnish primary schools. Hypotheses were developed and tested by structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that moral leadership exerted by school principals support teachers’ sense of empowerment both in work domain and classroom domain. Distributed leadership, in the meaning of sharing instructional leadership tasks with teachers, supported work domain empowerment but did not predict classroom domain teacher empowerment. Taken together, the model show the value of school principals facilitating teachers in decision-making processes paired with showing a strong moral basis in their relationship with teachers.

The study reinforces the importance of moral leadership and distributed leadership as conjoint drivers for teachers’ sense of empowerment. It would be highly valuable to replicate this study in various multi-level settings.

The findings recommend school leaders to put emphasis on facilitative, ethical, and authentic practices in immediate relationships with their teachers.

The study provides empirical evidence regarding the partial relationships between principal leadership practices and teacher empowerment.